Maha Kumbh and stampedes: A look at the deadly history of world's largest religious gathering

Maha Kumbh Stampede 2025:A stampede at Maha Kumbh, the world's largest religious gathering, on Wednesday (Jan 29) has resulted in multiple casualties. The tragic incident in India's Prayagraj happened as millions turned up to take the holy dip on Mauni Amavasya (new moon). The official death toll is still pending.

The shocking mishap happened despite extensive crowd control measures undertaken this year.

Maha Kumbh, a massive religious gathering, and an age-old tradition, has a history of such deadly events. To avoid crowd crushes, the organisers have put AI to use.

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Stampedes and Maha Kumbh

In 1954, in one of the highest single-day tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally, more than 400 were trampled to death or died by drowning at the Kumbh Mela. The figures for the tragedy varied according to different sources. The Guardian reported that 800 people died, and over 100 were injured.

Meanwhile, TIME reported that "no fewer than 350 people were trampled to death and drowned, 200 were counted missing, and over 2,000 were injured".

In 2013, the last time Maha Kumbh was held in Prayagraj (then called Allahabad), 36 people were crushed to death.

The most significant deadly crowd crushes at the Kumbh Mela, besides in 1954 and 2013, occurred in 1840, 1906, 1954, 1986, 2003 (resulting in 39 fatalities), and 2010 (with 7 deaths).

Maha Kumbh 2025: Crowd control measures

This time, Maha Kumbh organisers deployed advanced AI-based technology to help them gather accurate estimates of the crowd sizes and allow them to be better prepared for any potential trouble.

To aid in this, as per the police, around 300 cameras have been installed across the festival site. In addition, overhead drones have been deployed, all of which are monitored by a small army of police officers and technicians located in a glass-panelled command-and-control room near the spiritual centre of the festival.

This footage, as per Amit Kumar, a senior police officer heading tech operations in the festival, is fed into an AI algorithm that provides the handlers an overall estimate of the crowd. This data is then cross-checked against data from railways and bus operators.

"We are using AI to track people flow, crowd density at various inlets, adding them up and then interpolating from there," he added.

The AI-based system sounds an alarm if there are sections of crowds so concentrated that they pose a safety threat.

(With inputs from agencies)